Tears of Leyden

by Baysinger-Ott, Naomi

  He backs away as the other Spaniards take back my family. Meyleia reaches and whines for me. Moeder’s face is white with knowing trepidation for her daughters. I understand what is to happen to us and scream out my loudest scream. It hurts my own ears.

  I am lifted and forced back with the young man still holding me tight and away from all that matters to me, from every single electrolyte left in my torturous life. I continue to consist our meeting with a fight as he draws me out the back door. The last thing I see inside my family’s house is my dear moeder and Meyleia being herded away from me like mules or cattle; I am just the only one to be caught and brought out of the atrocious mess of butchery. I tug and haul at the soldier’s grasp, but it is no use. I am in loss of much energy. I must surrender, yet I don’t.

  The soldier pulls me out through and behind the rows of huts side by side along the great wall of the city. He continuously pulls, but becomes gentle as I grow weak. I don’t think I can last. He tugs on my wrist and I slam into him. I push at his chest with clenched fists and try to wrench back from his hold, but he is stronger and I feel my strength dwindling with my pounding head. I think I hear moeder and Meyleia through the huts as I am dragged passed, but I know I am merely hearing the lies of the town’s midday bustle. Still I engage myself in the strenuous struggle.

  The smell and drift of the canal breeze becomes almost unbearable to my sickening stomach and cold spinning head. I feel my muscles contract and expand every time I move from my labor the past week, and my new activity is not helping it ease. A shadow covers my head, and I see a doorway as he brushes me in front of himself, completely sheltering me from the light outdoors. With one last tug of protest, he lets me go and I collapse to the dirt floor, throwing myself into my arms and bawling into them, surrendering to the truth of my burning tears. I taste the salty water running down my cheeks and suppress myself into the ground. I sob out and let all belief of mercy go. I am in death’s hands now.

  I feel him standing there watching, his face filled with undeniable concern and guilt. I curl away as he paces a little closer and he sighs out, most likely not knowing what to do. I feel scared, lost, and abandoned by those I love by force, and the memories in my head do nothing to comfort me. I cringe at the stitch in my side and my stomach churns sickly. He paces again and I wish he would stop, for it only reminds me of his power and my weakness as I lie here, only adding to my collection of reservations. He seems not to know what to do. I don’t blame him, for who would know how to stop or comfort a bawling girl of the age eighteen with nothing left other than death to look forward to?

  I lay here at least a couple minutes as he paces. Finally, he kneels down beside me and sighs heavily.

  He annoys me; every shuffle of his feet, every rhythm of his heart beat, every thought of his reeking presence, every single breath he takes, it all makes me sick. It brings forward the knowledge that I am taking safety in this place while my family is now hanging by their necks. Their living is hardly even imaginable, especially since they are no more than a poor common woman and girl. The least they could be used for by the enemy is entertainment. I can’t think of it.

  It dawns on me. What will become of my future? What did this man want of me? What did they say about the King valuing something about me? Was this Mr. Gilch…was he to manage me…how? I cringe at the thought of my disposition and the possibility of giving up my purity to one of the blood of those who took my family.

  I suppress myself into the ground and choke out as I feel his eyes on me. I shiver inside at the thought of him eyeing each hair on my head, burning through me and seeing all that lies within.

  I feel my sobs dying. My throat hurts from the tremendous amount of screaming and chocking I had done. I feel my body quiet down without my want of it to. I tense partially without the tears to blur my senses and wish they would come back, but there is no telling when my tears will return. They are dried and gone, leaving me to fend for myself.

  I can’t move, I try to force the appearance of thankfulness into my being but I find none. I cannot stay like this. I silently render the words of prayer for strength into my mind, asking for intuition to guide me. For once, prayer seems to do nothing, leaving me cold and alone on the ground.

  I deliberately start to raise my head to look up and around me. I reluctantly start to rise. There is nothing to rise to, but maybe I can get answers. Answers to what will become of moeder and Meyleia and of what is to happen to me. The room is quiet and closed up. No one but the soldier and I are within it. I gradually uncurl and push up with my hands into a sitting position.

  I look down and out into the space opposite him, hiding from the cautious eyes which are watching me sympathetically. I close my eyes and try not to let a sob escape my mouth. I timidly glance up at him, still partly taking refuge behind my many strands of tangled hair.

  He calmly and unsurely watches me, the articulate features and subtle eyes gazing into my mine as though questioning me through the silence. I feel as though his eyes cool, and shrink even as I know I imagined it.

  He sighs again and pauses. “I…I am sorry…” His voice is soft.

  I push it away, not wanting to feel another person’s sympathy.

  He steps closer and I curl away, not wanting him to touch me with the hands of people who took my family; first my vader, now my moeder and sister. I can’t let them take me too.

  He stops in his stride and seems once more unsure of what to do. “I won’t hurt you.”

  I do not uncurl before his requests.

  “You cannot stay afraid of my caring for you…it is my duty and I can’t not follow it.” His voice is gentle and calm.

  I glance with no movement but my eyes through my hair.

  “I am sorry about your family…but I could do nothing more…”

  I suddenly feel a sharp prick in my heart. Not do anything more than…what? What had he done that had been so gallant? He’d gone too far. I whirl and my hair flies. I feel incensed. If he was all I had to take my emotions out on, then no matter the cost, I would use him to my advantage. I glare wide eyed at him. “You killed them,” I spit.

  His face is calm but soft.

  “You didn’t save them…”

  He drops his hand to his side.

  I shake my head. “How could you?” I whisper, feeling too close to tears. “How can you men be so cruel…?” My bottom lip trembles. “I hate you,” I say.

  His face pales and he steps in a little as though going to protest but I strike out at him. He catches my hand and I once again am imperiled to fear, but he merely drops it and I take the chance and don’t bite my tongue.

  “I hate you!”

  He squats before me, his face hovering inches from mine and the heat of it sending those intolerable shivery sensations through my being. “Look at me,” he directs.

  I avoid his gaze.

  He sighs as though not knowing what he is to do with me.

  Now I do blame him, it is his fault we are in this. After what feels like a few stubborn seconds, I hesitantly turn to look at him. Our eyes meet and he searches mine for answers…little does he know that there are none.

  “I couldn’t save your family and you,” he says softly. “I just couldn’t…”

  I choke up at his absurdity. “Why does it matter?” I sob. “Why does it matter to you whether I am dead or alive….you couldn’t let me and my family be and saved me from this…this suffering…why?” I feel my eyes fill to their brim and have to stare out of force. I do not dare to blink in fear of causing the water behind my lashes to fall.

  He seems to understand my situation and sighing again, keeps quiet a moment. Then, he speaks lenient and pitifully to me. “Listen to me, please…I know we’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry for it, but please…I did what I could’ve done…I’m here for whatever reason to control you, and to ignore this would be insolent to the higher controllers on our part…specifically the monarch. I will do my best to care take you, if you do your best
to hear me through.”

  I slowly peek back up into his eyes and for the first time find them not cold, but warm. I hate them.

  “You must be alive to do,” he tries. “I am being and I am doing…not just thinking and dying by thoughts.”

  I study his portrait, his dark brown hair, his light olive complexion, the expressive, abysmal, and decisive blue eyes, his sudden appearance not vivid with Spanish blood, but definitely I see it in him…or on him. His clothes are not fancy but common; button-down white shirt and breeches that look new but also darkened from travel. His boots have the mark of the Spanish militia imprinted on them. I would love to scrawl out the print. A certain sense of resonance though, in his being, threatens to make me feel forgiveness. I swallow hard and try not to lose my anger towards him, let alone my hatred for Spaniards. He searches my face for any left emotions to be aware of.

  I hate him. That is the only one left. I hope he sees it straight on.

  “I did not choose to take you away from them…I would never have done it if…”

  “You did though.”

  He looks at me gravely. “No. I didn’t, that was my fellow company. You are in my hands now, whether either of us can do something about it I am not sure. I do know, however, that I am supposed to protect you for unknown reasons of the King. You must agree that I have no hands in that.”

  I look to the ground and avoid him. I will never agree. Not for him or with him.

  “May I call you by your name which I know not of?” He introduces gently.

  I swallow dry spit and want to feel the loathing I know to be still stored in me somewhere. “You may not.” It is hoarse and whispery but I take pleasure at the callousness.

  He sighs. “May I at least take you into a safer environment?”

  “My welfare is my own concern, even if you have been given responsibility of it.”

  He is still calm. “I agree it is in your keeping physically and mentally, but it is in my hands to keep you, not just your health, in good condition for whatever the king desires.”

  The way he says it makes the King’s ideas sound worse than before, but I feel a shift inside that he is right. I look at him, not wanting the truth to separate me and the roaring despised feeling I have for him, but the hate is fleeing quickly from my heart, and I cannot seem to harness and pull it back.

  I tighten my fist, feeling the anger through it as I dig my nails into my skin. “What did they mean I was wanted by the King?”

  His face turns flushed, and he looks unmistakably unconvinced. “I do not know.”

  I hate that he sounds honest. “If it is your responsibility to take me somewhere, you must know. You belong to the Spanish army.”

  He clenches his jaw, but not out of anger, it is passive and slightly annoyed, though not with me it seems. “I cannot tell you if I don’t know. I am new to the military. The man you ran into today…he was the one you could have asked.” It is earnest.

  I think over the event with the first officer again. I hate to break it to him, but I don’t think there would have been a moment when I could have asked him, and I don’t plan on meeting him again. Now or ever.

  “Then why do you want to control me?”

  He is quiet. “Not control, care-take.”

  It sounds much worse. “Why?”

  He is silent.

  “If owning me is in your best interest than…”

  His face is firm. “You belong to no one but yourself and God, but we have our rights to protect and help each other whether the other is ignorant of it or wants it.”

  I can’t answer it. I instead direct him elsewhere. “Why?”

  He glances behind me. “I don’t know,” he sounds earnest, and I have a feeling he is.

  I push aside the words. “Where are we now?”

  “In a friend’s cottage…I must take you somewhere safer,” the last part was only to himself, but I can’t help it.

  “No.”

  He eyes me carefully. “I have to.”

  After a moment of my silence, he starts to rise.

  I watch, unsure of his action and my best interest being in it. He comes closer and the unsureness soon roils inside and turns into nothing but dead quiet. My heart pounds again. I shake my head in imploration, but he is already picking me up and dragging me towards the door.

  The loathing returns.

  I pull back but he brings me in tight in his hold. He is of the greater power. I nearly lose my balance as he pulls me to my feet too fast. I twist my wrist trying to get away, but he holds me in his hands, loosening and tightening depending on my force. I beg out in sobs, but he seems unmoved by it all. My head is spinning and it takes all my concentration not to stumble over myself as tears blur my vision. I don’t know why I am even fighting anymore. I couldn’t get to them even if I did free myself. I don’t stop even though I know this.

  We make a slight curve in our path along the wall and I find myself identifying the side of the city on the east. He pauses a moment and his grip tightens at a sound nearby. I want to scream. I almost scream. I should scream, but I don’t. He brings me forward another yard, and then without warning turns into an open doorway. The moment I feel him relax, I know we are in his desired place. I pull away. I glimpse a dirt grounded room with a table, a stove, and a book shelve before I smack against the floor.

  I let out one last sob as my knees wobble beneath my weight as I try to support myself. I crawl and drag myself away from him, cowering and then collapsing to the ground, never wanting to be touched again.

  He stands there panting and watching with an unreadable expression on his face. My eyes forcibly open and close as I shake with my consistent sappy sounding sobs. I hear him sigh and as my eyes open, I glace him from my awkward position as he turns and locks the door we came through and then starts towards the open doorway to the right. I close my eyes and keep crying and groaning into my hands, burrowing into myself.

  I am all I have left.

  Chapter 3

  I don’t know how long I’ve lain here, but it is cold, my toes are numb, and my body is stiff against the hard floor. I slowly raise my head from its long endured cradle in my arms. I feel my stomach growl and remember that I haven’t eaten anything today. I hear something creak and a small scratching sound against steel is followed by the sound of silverware against glass. I conclude that I am not yet left to my freedom and lay back down my head, not wanting to be noticed but forgotten. I close my eyes and wait for silence. It comes too soon and I start to drift.

  Something warm and steamy wafts into my breath and I frown. I soften to it as it strengthens and become a little too comforting. I hear the muffled shuffle of feet over the ground close behind me, but my lethargy gives me no warning. The smell is irresistible.

  There is a soft brush against my shoulder and I freeze, my eyes shooting open at the unexpected contact with another object. I do not move.

  Then I hear it.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I swallow as I catch the scent of waving heat again. Without turning, after this past month of starvation, I know it is hot food.

  I ignore it.

  There are a few moments of quiet. I hear the sound of something being set against the floor by my head and glimpse a white bowl with something contained in its round circumference. I listen to him getting to his feet and wait until he is safely out of hearing. I gradually start to push up from my lying place.

  I peek into the bowl and see warm millet with some rosemary sprinkled over the scoop of boiled granules. I once again swallow dryly into my sore throat. My stomach feels empty and pitted. I feel it churn restlessly as though speaking for itself. I don’t take the millet. I lie back down and try to forget the ache in my sides from my strain and hunger. I start to sink and drift, forgetting all else and letting go of the images of my nightmare. I feel myself being lifted into sleep again and don’t have the strength to fight against any other battle to be won. I let go.

  I awaken slo
wly to the sounds of birds chirping outside. My eyes are blinded by the shock of early morning light as they absently open. I shift a little and pull the warm blanket farther up and around me. I frown and leisurely start to lift my gaze from my lids. I look around me and am thoughtfully forgetful for a few moments. Then, all rushes into me like a newly surfaced stream. I am suddenly bolted with energy. I start up a little from my place on the dirt ground.

  The room is empty and quiet apart from the scarce furniture and sounds of dishes and pots being rattled in another room. I look in the direction from which the sound is coming from, and it takes me a moment to fully wake my eyes. He is there, through the door-less doorframe, with his front facing me as I sit here watching his figure and recalling the loathing I’d felt for him. I suppose that the stove is pushed up against the wall, so that blocked from my view.

  I watch hesitantly but with resentment to the hesitance, frightened of meeting his gaze. He fills the bowl and then takes up another and fills it to the brim as well. I feel my stomach twisting and my mouth waters out of hunger. He steps over to the small table with two chairs only half hidden behind the wall, and sets the filled bowl on the side closest to me, and then sits with his face to me. To my thanks, I do not find him looking at me. He picks up a letter and opening it, begins to read, his brow slightly furrowed in a thoughtful crease.

  I feel my stomach growl. I don’t think I can last without at least water. I look for the bowl he’d given me yesterday (was it yesterday already?) but it is no longer in my bearings. I swallow hard at the thought of a day passing since moeder and Meyleia’s departure. Though it pains me, I feel the ache in my stomach and my head keeps me from retaining a reasonable train of thought. I reluctantly start to rise and begin towards the table.

  I must pray for them later.

  For them to come back.

  Chapter 4

  I slowly sink down into the seat and forbid myself to make any visual contact with the being sitting across from me. He looks up and I uncertainly meet his gaze.